Heather Howard

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Research Interests

Politics of Knowledge Production in Cultural, Heritage, Health, and Social Service Delivery Organizations

Community-Driven Methodologies

Medical Anthropology

Indigenous Peoples Health

Technologies of Chronic Illness Management

Biographical Info

I study the social relations through which authoritative knowledge – the knowledge that counts – is constructed and applied in healthcare, social service, educational, and cultural organizations, particularly in efforts to address structural inequities. I carry out my research in varied settings ranging from clinics, to community centers, to schools, and museums. I work primarily with Indigenous peoples for whom my research has significant policy and applied implications, for example increasing autonomy and improving healthcare experience. I am especially interested in the ways responsibility, choice, identity, and healing are shaped in relation to technological innovations, and the meaning people make from collective memory and engagements of the past in the present. My work centers on collaborative, community-based, and participatory approaches to research which promote the value of Indigenous knowledge frameworks to scholarship and research that is meaningful to community. I have held an adjunct faculty appointment at the University of Toronto with the Centre for Indigenous Initiatives since 2009, and was a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford with the Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity in the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology in 2016 and 2017. Several of my research projects study the intersection of class, gender, culture, and perspectives on human/non-human relations in Indigenous women’s work and activism experience in urban education, community history, and heritage item making. As a member of the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Culture (GRASAC), I am currently examining materialities of Indigenous sovereignty in the meaning-making processes engaged by Indigenous peoples with museum objects of social and cultural significance. Having recently completed major ethnographic research in an obesity clinic, I am also currently writing about bariatric surgery, tracing its recent history of developing into a “cure” for diabetes and the implications this has for patient choice and identity. This work draws attention to the consequential transformation of ideas about when and who should prescribe and choose this dramatic intervention on the body, and raises important questions about the social and ethical significance of a surgical intervention into a condition that is significantly shaped by socio-economic determinants. For Indigenous patients who are also members of socially marked racial/ethnic communities, as I move forward with this research, it will be important to interrogate how identity and the reframing of responsibility and choice are factors in decisions to pursue this and other technological interventions on the body.

Current Research Projects

2018-2019: “Widening the Circle: Building a Community Knowledge Sharing Digital Platform with Great Lakes Indigenous Cultural Heritage Research Data” Co-PI, (PI: Heidi Bohaker, University of Toronto/ co-PI Margaret Bruchac, University of Pennsylvania), Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

2017-2018: “Nitaawichige: Skilled at Making Things,” Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures, pilot study funded under a Social Science & Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Development Grant (H. Bohaker, PI)

2013-2017: “Our Health Counts Toronto: Developing A Population-Based Urban Aboriginal Cohort to Assess and Enhance Individual, Family and Community Health and Well-being,” co-I (Janet Smylie, (PI) St. Michael’s Hospital Centre for Research on Inner-City Health, Toronto) Canadian Institutes for Health Research

2013-2015: “Memory, Meaning-Making and Collections,” co-PI (with C. Krmpotich and L. Howarth (Faculty of Information, University of Toronto) and Native Canadian Centre of Toronto) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Development

2012-2013: “Comparative Effectiveness of Primary Care Practice Transformation by Two Insurers,” co-I (with R. Malouin, Department of Family Medicine, MSU) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

2012-2013: “Sharing Transformations in Diabetes,” PI, Canadian Institutes for Health Research

2012-2013: “Understanding Primary Care Transformation in the Niagara Region of Ontario from the Perspective of Practices and Programs,”co-PI (with R. Malouin (Department of Family Medicine, MSU) Canadian Embassy Faculty Research Grant Program

2010-2011: “Transformations in Diabetes Prevention Education and Support Initiatives by and for Aboriginal People in Toronto,” PI, Indigenous Health Research Development Program, Network Environments for Aboriginal Health Research, Canadian Institutes for Health Research